


Too Much of Water

by binz, shiplizard



Category: Forever (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Daemons, Fathers & Sons, Gen, Memory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-26
Updated: 2015-03-26
Packaged: 2018-03-19 19:30:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3621576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/binz/pseuds/binz, https://archiveofourown.org/users/shiplizard/pseuds/shiplizard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snippets from a daemon a-universe</p>
            </blockquote>





	Too Much of Water

**Author's Note:**

> This may or may not ever be updated-- the story is willing but the time management is weak. Right now, this is a place to keep what has been done, in case it turns out it's just a one-shot after all.
> 
> Shout out to [idelthoughts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/idelthoughts/pseuds/idelthoughts) who hit the inspiration nail on the head in a hot second. Too much of water has thou, poor Ophelia.

The wind gusted off the water, chilly and damp, carrying with it the early-morning stink of the river, filthy water and diesel and smoke from the nearby factories. A ship blew its horn, clear and loud in the crisp air, and his gaze went to it, then to the wake trailing it in the muddy water, brown and grey against the cold blue sky. 

He wondered, as he often did, what his father would have thought of the modern ships, more and more powerful with each decade, no longer dependant on the winds and tides and good fortune. Nor hampered by the royal navy and the press, for that matter. He’d loved the shipyard, as a child, when his father had taken him, the sheer human power in the chaos of the docks, but also in the control, in the demonstration of skill and ingenuity, the way the wooden planks were smoothed and shaped, smoothed and reshaped, until they were fit for purpose. He’d been a child still when he’d-- 

Ophelia yanked on a curl of his hair, tugging fiercely and jerking his attention back to her and their surroundings. “Henry,” she said, softly, so only he could hear, combing soothingly where she’d pulled. “Focus. This wind is frigid.” 

As if reminded, the wind picked up again, making his eyes water. He hunched his shoulders, Ophelia tickling his skin as she fluffed herself up, nestled on his shoulder and into his scarf, and carefully picked his way along the water’s edge, navigating the slippery shore and piles of rubbish and mostly unidentifiable organic material that had been left behind as the spring flood retreated. 

The river had little to recommend it-- he would know-- and their reason for calling there this morning less so. He skirted a particularly slimy looking patch of grey and brown while determinedly making no effort to put a name to it, and walked a tighter circle around the corpse. Male-- female? Hard to tell. A slender man or a broad woman. Dark skin discoloured with death and everything that came after, the only visible hair under the muck sheared almost to the skull. The clothes were tattered and soaked through, dominated by a long heavy jacket that obscured most of the body. There was evidence of damage to the whole left side of the face, obscuring the features, but he’d need to wait until he was back at the morgue to determine if it was pre- or post-mortem. 

“Ergh,” said Jo, and pulled one foot free of the mud with a sucking squelch. “This is disgusting. I really hope there’s a towel in the car. Are you guys getting anything? Zee?”

Her daemon lifted his head from where he was sniffing industriously at the ground around the corpse, carefully avoiding contact with the dead body, his muzzle wrinkling in a sneeze. “You want disgusting-- you should try dragging your face through this. Not getting anything useful about this guy, though.”

“Not much left to get but stink. Couldn’t tell you what his daemon was,” said Hansen’s white bull terrier, lifting her long nose away from where she had been dubiously snuffling the air above the body’s legs. “Been dead a while.”

“A while is understating things,” Henry said, stooping beside the corpse. “Since winter at least. The tissue damage here is consistent with being frozen and thawed-- posthumously, possibly multiple times. Look at the colour of the fingers; the extremities froze first and never thawed enough to really start to decompose, not at all what you would expect of frostbite.”

“Thought he smelled like freezer burn,” Ausgustine said, and trotted back to lean against Hansen’s leg. He reached down to touch her head absentmindedly.

“Precisely,” Henry said, pulling a pair of latex gloves from his pocket. He snapped them on, and carefully rolled the corpse’s head to the side, peering at the damage. Some type of blow, the breakage in the skull was visible here, clogged with mud. “The neck is broken, and the skull. Whether that happened pre- or post-mortem, however, I will need a... cleaner examination to tell.” 

He frowned, twisting down the exposed collar of the large jacket. “This is an expensive brand-- and the tag is in Italian.” It was a woman’s jacket; not in itself conclusive, but he felt confident enough to guess. “Whoever your victim was, financial concerns may not have been her problem.” He straightened. “I expect she washed ashore with the spring melt. I’ll need to conduct a more thorough examination before I can tell you anything with more certainty. If we’re lucky, the freezing process preserved more evidence than the water and thaw destroyed.”

“Okay,” Jo said, pulling out her mobile phone, thumb swiping across the screen. “I’ll tell the uniforms and forensics they can move in. Let’s go; you need a bath, mister,” she told Zee, as the fox drew in beside her, his black coat brown to his belly with the mud and muck. 

“You might want to start with women reported missing after the first of January,” Henry said, following them. “I seem to recall that’s when the rivers really began to freeze.” 

“Had to put your swims on hold until spring, huh?” Hanson said, smirking playfully.

Henry just smiled sheepishly, accepting the teasing with a wave of his hand. He felt Ophelia hold very still, knew she was willing neither Jo nor Hanson to notice her, to start to wonder where she went when Henry was collecting another indecent exposure charge. “Hopefully I’ll have more answers for you when I’ve conducted my examination.”

Ophelia shook herself free of her spot on Henry’s shoulder, hopped with a quick flap up to his head, her feet gripping tightly to his hair. “Henry,” she said, “look,” and took off.

He turned, looking after her-- Jo and Hanson, too, alerted by her call, the flash of her feathers in the early morning sun, blue and black and white. He saw their expressions, that fresh surprise that everyone shared, whenever they were reminded that as a magpie, Ophelia could fly, about what that might mean, and age-old superstitions. 

“Oh jeeze,” Hanson said, and slapped a hand over his mouth. Augustine whined, pawing over her muzzle. 

Henry looked back to Ophelia-- perched on the corpse’s face, her head bobbing, her beak poking expertly into the ruined left eye socket. 

“Oh jeeze,” Hanson said again, a gurgling gag in his throat. 

Henry hurried over, ignoring them, and knelt beside Ophelia, holding out his arm as she triumphantly hopped about the corpse’s chest. She fluttered over, neck arched, the sun glinting off her prize.

He stroked his fingers down her back, then held out his hand. She carefully dropped the piece of broken glass into it. 

“What is it?” Jo asked, voice carefully neutral, although Zee kept behind her, close to her legs, wary. 

Henry held up the shard, pulling Ophelia closer to his chest. She ducked her head under his chin. She’d done well. “Your first clue.”

* * *

“Real glass,” Tirzah said, turning the shard over and over in capable little paws, holding it carefully under the waterflow from the sink for a moment. Abe leaned in beside her, man and raccoon looking almost comically similar, grey and intent on the glittering little shard. 

“Be careful, then, dear!” Ophelia fluttered to the sink, hopping from foot to foot. 

“I’m not the one who had it in my mouth,” the daemon said, longsufferingly. “Yeah, yeah. Being careful.” 

“There were indentations around the nose that indicated an eyeglass wearer. I thought it might be from there,” Henry said, frowning. “But that seems unlikely, now.” 

“Likelier than you think,” Abe said. “Look at that change in the curve there. Bet you saw a few in your day.” 

“Indeed-- but not many anymore. Bifocals in real glass. Not common-- and rather expensive compared to high-index plastic.” 

“I’m thinking these were antiques, too, when they were intact.” Abe said, regretfully. “There was some hand-grinding involved here. Could have been a beautiful pair.” 

“Shame. Real shame,” Tirzah agreed, carefully dropping the bit of glass into the plastic evidence box Henry had spirited it out of the station in, snapping the top back on. Ophelia started to preen her soothingly, and she ruffled her fur but let the magpie groom her. 

Another sign of wealth, not ostentatious; their victim had been a woman of good taste and little flash. How could a woman like that have gone missing without so much as a ripple? And yet no missing person’s report even close to matching her had been found in the NYPD’s files as of yet. Someone of means and influence usually had friends or family in high places who would have been quite vocal about locating them-- some interested party who wouldn’t have let them go quietly. 

Possible answers presented themselves-- a tourist, a business traveller, but then the likelihood of her absence going unreported seemed even more troubling. Surely someone was grieving for this woman. 

“Thank you, Abraham,” Henry said, with a smile that belied how troubled he was. “I knew I could count on your expertise and Tirzah’s eye.” 

“Something bothering you, Henry?”

“It’s nothing, yet.” 

Ophelia made her last fretful touches to Tirzah’s coat, rubbing her head affectionately across the tufted cheeks. 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” Tirzah grumbled, and tucked a stray feather back into place on Ophelia’s wing with careful hands. 

“Hmm,” said Abe, watching him. “Yeah, sure. You want some lunch? Let me make you a sandwich at least. We got some of that Stilton left, you gotta eat it before it gains enough sentience to set up an independent kingdom in the fridge.”

“Abraham, you would be much more convincing if I hadn’t watched you consume your bodyweight in gorgonzola more times than I can remember.”

“You still have to eat, anyway. C’mon, Tizz.” The raccoon gripped the counter, lowering herself down with quick, careful handholds, and clammered up the stairs after Abe.

Ophelia flapped up to Henry’s shoulder. “He’s right, you know. You do need to eat.” 

“Save your fussing for the children,” Henry said, and got a sharp nibble on the ear for it. “I’m fine.” 

“We’ll solve it for her, Henry,” Ophelia murmured. “I feel for her too. But now go and eat something, and then take the evidence back before anyone gets in trouble.” 

“Beset on all sides,” he said, loudly. 

“That’s right!” Abe called down the stairs. 

He started up the stairs to be fed, though his mind was drifting back into the past, chasing fragments of memory as splintered and obsolete now as the poor woman’s spectacles.


End file.
